BGP Origin AS-path Attribute

The origin as-path attribute describes where a router received the
route from. Origin information for each route MUST be transmitted in every
BGP Update message as it is a well-known
mandatory attribute.
This means that ALL implementations of BGP must support it and pass
it on when sending routing information.

The origin attribute can contain one of three values:

Internal

External

Incomplete

INTERNAL

EXTERNAL

INCOMPLETE

The router isn't quite sure the route is actually correct, but it comes from
the local protocol and was inserted automatically from a static route using
the redistribute
command. Despite what most NOC technicians seem to believe, this is NOT an
invalid route. Most customers redistributing their static routes into their
BGP tables will have incomplete routes. All incomplete really means
is that there was no origin information passed to the router when it learned
the
route. Such would always be the case with a redistributed static route.

I've had more than one NOC 'expert' tell me that
'incomplete' means I'm not advertising the route which is just plain WRONG.
--InetDaemon